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0 pointsAlex391714y ago0 comments

"Firstly, things have changed massively since one flew over the cuccoos nest was written. [...] A modern psychiatric hospital is utterly unlike the place in that book in every respect."

Why do you say this? From everything I've read I don't think there have been many changes at all.

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3 comments · 2 top-level

JonnieCache14y ago· 1 in thread

I've seen the inside of (admittedly only one of) them, although not as a patient. My father is a psychiatrist.

I admit that they probably bear some similarities in the patterns of procedure and behaviour that take place in them, but they are not the stark, inhumane, prisonlike environments portrayed in that book/film. You're right though, "utterly unlike in every respect" is probably too strong.

nknight14y ago

> I've seen the inside of (admittedly only one of) them, although not as a patient. My father is a psychiatrist.

So you lack first-hand knowledge, and your argument is easily seen as a biased defense of a family member -- an authority figure, even.

I don't think you're helping your cause any.

cgoddard14y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deinstitutionalization

Granted letting people fend for themselves on the streets and be poor and destitute through financial marginalization isn't always a lot better.

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